gurugeorge

Just been reading Freke & Gandy's new book (or via: amazon.co.uk). One thing that particularly struck me right off is the notion (which I'm not sure if they put forward before, or if anybody has put forward before), that proto-Gnostic Christianity (the first real Christianity of Paul and other of the earliest texts) developed after 70 CE, as a reaction agains the revolutionary concept of the Messiah - i.e. transforming the revolutionary Messiah concept of "one who is to come" which had just caused so much trouble, so much death and destruction, into a spiritualised Messiah as Redeeming Man-God, who had already come and been. Then, again, in 135 CE, there was even more impetus to develop the spiritualised version, but by then some versions of the idea were getting historicised.

The way F&G develop it is that this proto-Gnostic Christianity, all developed from Paul and the earliest "Apostles" (i.e. people sharing this vision), and that when literalism arose, it found itself competing against already much more widely established versions of the myth. (This comes from Bauer's analysis of who the first actual Christian churches were.)

This is not to say that this proto-Gnosticism was a movement self-consciously calling itself Gnostic - in fact that came later. But the original forms of Christianity were the ancestors of what later became Gnosticism. So the picture one has is one of various schools calling themselves "Christian" but actually following diverse interpretations of the (ex revolutionary, kingly) Messiah as a (now spiritual) dying/redeeming god; historical literalism being but one of these diverse interpretations.

But anyway, this idea that there was a revulsion against the politico-revolutionary Messiah concept after 70 CE and that this gave rise to the popularity of a spiritualised Messiah concept, makes real sense to me. It might be either that some forms of spiritualised Messiah (proto-Gnostic) concept were around in various communities already to a small extent, and that the zeitgeist merely picked up and amplified them; or (less likely IMHO) that the spiritualised Messiah was created ex novo to symbolise this rejection of the old revolutionary idea.

Solo

I think key to understanding the origins of Xty is the manner the core beliefs and values were extracted and transferred from the Essene (or Essene-like) Judaic sectarianism to Hellenic Judaism to the wider world of Hellenic Gentiles. I believe the religion started with an original apocalyptic scheme and a set of rituals which point to a historical figure of Jesus. At his death, the beliefs of this founder and his martyrdom was accepted by a wider congregation around James the Just. Through some of the original entourage of Jesus, these quickly came to be adapted by Hellenic Jewish intellectuals, who created the original proto-Gnostic scheme of Christianity. Exiled from the church and Jerusalem early, they dispersed and settled in Syria and Asia Minor, disseminating the Jesus mysteries around the local Jewish communities and their Gentile supporters. That form of the creed was vigorously opposed by the more orthodox believers. Paul of Tarsus, came into contact with the Jesus societies and militated against them. He became converted, (in a conversion of sorts), and developped his own, original "gnosis" of Jesus which stressed faith and wide community building against "mystery mongering", copping out, and elitist self-actualization then prevalent in the movement. He energetically spread his creed in the Gentile world through a circle of his friends and supporters. With some (non-trivial) adjustments, his views became the de facto theology and cosmology of the new religion.

The two events, the war of 66-70 and the rebellion of 135, only quickened the separation of the new faith from its Jewish roots and externalized the tensions between the Galilean and Judean factions into a tradition of anti-Jewishness. Beoynd that, I don't think they had much impact because Christianity acquired its own, internal dynamic and ceased to be in any way dependent on its Jewish connection.

I think the function of "Messiah" was simply transformed (Hellenized) in the new religion, a process which accelerated after the death of James and the destruction of the Jerusalem church in 70. I don't see any evidence that a shift in Jewish internal Messianic vistas or political development played a significant role in that transformation. What do F&G offer in that respect ?

Jiri